Our Strength
by FaceofWood
Summary: Life on the Isle of the Lost isn't easy, but everyone has to learn to survive. Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos managed to hide their secrets from everyone on the isle other than themselves, but will their trip to Auradon reveal those secrets. (Mal is blind, Evie is deaf, Jay has Fibromyalgia and Carlos is on the Autism spectrum.)
1. Chapter 1

**_I would like to start off this story with a little disclaimer. Jay's Fibromyalgia come from my own experience having it. Carlos is based off my brother and a bit of Billy Cranston form the 2017 Power Rangers movie. Both Mal and Evie are only coming from research. If any deaf/ HoH or blind readers find anything wrong with my interpretation I encourage you to correct me and I will do my best to fix it asap. Hope you enjoy :)_**

* * *

Evie, daughter of the Evil Queen, was born without the ability to hear. She was stuck in her mother's house for some time, until Maleficent called on them. Her mother warned her not to let anyone know that she was deaf. On the Isle of the Lost one needed all their senses to survive and she was worried that Maleficent would not want to ally herself with the Evil Queen if she knew. After that meeting Evie became fast friends with Mal, Jay and Carlos. Eventually they did find out about her deafness. Evie feared they would no longer want to be her friends, but they surprised her by helping keep her secret. Her three new friends helped her learn to quickly read lips, as there was no way for them to learn sign language without revealing Evie's secret. As time passed, Evie began to see her deafness as more helpful than a hindrance. She was able to pick up on more visual cues than the others. Whenever they were meeting with someone it was Evie's job to make sure the person was always telling the truth.

Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, could see until she was ten years old. She got sick, no one on the isle could tell what she had, but she just barely survived it. In the end she lost her ability to see. At first she was terrified, if the others on the isle found out she would be viewed as an easy target, so she made the decision to pretend she could still see. Her friends were the only one to find out and they helped her hide her disability. Evie and Mal became inseparable with Mal being Evie's ears and Evie being Mal's eyes. She also helped Mal learn to rely on her other senses more. It was different than she expected, her other senses did not improve with her lack of sight, she just learned to rely on them differently. Since there was no way for them to properly learn braille, the four came up with their own ways of helping Mal. Each item in her room had a marking scratched into it and each marking related to what it was. It took a long time, but Mal was able to relearn how to survive on the isle.

Jay, Jafar's son, was about nine years old when his ankle started hurting. He had not injured it, there was no reason for it to hurt. He told Mal and she helped him find cloth to wrap his ankle, hoping that would help. It did not help and over the years it slowly got worse. The pain was in both of his ankles and then his wrists. Mal, Evie and Carlos tried to help, but none could figure out what was wrong. Before long Jay's back, knees, and hips were also in pain. The severity of the pain changed from day to day. Some days it hurt so much he could barely move. His friends helped him steal for his father's shops those days. One day Carlos managed to get an internet signal and he used his time to figure out what was wrong with Jay. He found that the best diagnosis was something called Fibromyalgia, chronic wide-spread pain. With that answer did not come much to help Jay. They knew ice or heat could help him, they also knew that exercise and medicine would help. Without access to medicine Jay took to more free running. He usually used a bit to help him steal things, but now he got into it more. The exercise did help a bit, but not much. Jay developed a pretty good poker face to hide how much pain he was in, it was almost good enough to trick even Evie. He also found that the pain sometimes would make his brain foggy and it would be difficult to concentrate. Whenever that happened his friends would be there helping him.

Carlos, son of Cruella De Vil, was a genius when it came to technology. Whenever he started a new project it was impossible to get him to think of anything else. Prior to meeting Mal, Evie, and Jay, Carlos did not leave his house. He found it difficult to speak with other people and relate to them. After hanging out with his new friends he found that understanding sarcasm was difficult for him. It took him some time to get comfortable with them, but they were patient. Mal, Evie, and Jay enjoyed when Carlos talked about his latest project which was very different from his mother who would just tell him to shut up. When Jay was in pain and they could not find an explanation he dedicated himself to getting an internet connection to see if could help. While doing that he also manage to find out he may be on the Autism Spectrum. Carlos did not like when people touched him outside of his three friends. This proved to be difficult with people like Harry Hook who was too comfortable getting into people's personal spaces. Lucky for Carlos, he had three great friends who made sure to keep people far away from him. Making him meet Mal, Evie, and Jay was probably the only good thing his mother did for him.

* * *

One day when they were sixteen Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos were walking around the Isle, making mischief in their own way. Then Maleficent showed up and told them that they were picked by soon-to-be King Ben to go to school in Auradon. Ben wanted to give them a chance to be good, but their parents wanted them to use the opportunity to steal Fairy Godmother's magic wand and free all the villains. It was not an easy task for anyone, but they were expected to do it and the threat of their parents' wrath was enough to make them agree to the plan. They all knew that their parents saw them as disappointments and this would be their chance to prove their worth.

The four of them would be lying if they said they were not terrified getting into that limo. They did not know what life was like in Auradon and did not want people to know their secrets. On the Isle, as feared as they were, they could become invisible, no one really noticed them, but all eyes would be on them in Auradon.

The ride was full of trying the various sweet snacks that were there and Mal silently trying to come up with a plan. "Mal." She heard Jay say and looked up in his general direction, "Don't worry about the plan to much right now, we'll figure it out once we get there. Here have some of this." He gently grabbed Mal's hand and put something in her hand. In response Mal nodded and put the object in her mouth. It was hard like a brick in her hand, but melted in her mouth and tasted sweeter than anything she had eaten before. She felt Carlos guide her hand to the jar that held the treat so that she could get more.

Evie smiled at them and looked over to where Jay was squirming in his seat. "Jay?" she asked.

"I'm sorry. I guess it gets worse when I'm sitting in a car for too long." Jay told them. Evie saw the sadness in her face and the look on Mal's face told her it was in his voice as well.

"Do you mind if I massage your back a bit? We shouldn't be much longer." Evie asked Jay, already switching seats with Carlos to be closer. He smiled and nodded, a massage often helped more than anything to calm his pain. For the rest of the ride they sat in silence enjoying their treats.

* * *

Ben's heart raced with nervousness and excitement as he saw the limo holding the four children from the Isle pulled into Auradon Prep. The limo stopped right in front of where he was standing with his girlfriend, Audrey, and Fairy Godmother. The driver let out his passengers and Ben soon noticed there was something different about them. He introduced himself and the other two with him. The one with white hair, Carlos, seemed unwilling to shake his hand. The boy wearing a beanie hat, Jay, seemed to be hiding his discomfort. The girl with blue hair, Evie, seemed to be really focusing on every word he said. The girl with purple hair, Mal, was able to look him directly in the eye, but it was almost as if she was seeing right through him. He was tempted to ask, but refrained, if they wanted to tell him anything, they would. Ben made it his new goal to get to know the new students to make them more comfortable.

* * *

Mal and Evie were beyond relieved that they were sharing a room and that Jay and Carlos were not too far away. Over the years they became dependent on each other and being close would make adjusting to life in Auradon easier.

After failing their first plan to get the wand, it was clear they needed to get to know Auradon better. They learned that it was nothing like the Isle. Over time, they got more comfortable and soon they realized they would be safe to reveal their secrets. Despite liking Auradon, they knew they could not disappoint their parents, they came up with a second plan. Mal would use a love potion on Ben and become his girlfriend to get closer to the wand during his coronation.

The best way to get the potion into Ben was to make cookies, so one night, Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos went down to the kitchen and started making cookies. They felt so safe that while reading out the ingredients to Mal, Evie had her back turned to the door. Jay and Carlos were out of the room gathering some things they needed that were not in the kitchen.

"Hey guys what's going on?" Mal heard from the direction of the door, it was Lonnie, Mulan's daughter. Evie kept reading out of Maleificent's spell book until Mal quickly put her hand on Evie's shoulder making her look up and see.

Mal quickly answered Lonnie, "Oh, we're just making cookies for Ben. Ya know, to say thanks."

She felt Evie move her to the left a bit and say, "Hey Ben. What a surprise!"

Mal, trying to recover from her mistake, turned slightly to her left and said, "Ben! I didn't see you there. This was supposed to be a surprise." Evie saw in Lonnie and Ben's faces that they were not buying Mal's excuse. "We should just tell them the truth. This isn't working here." Evie said aloud to Mal.

"Tell us what?" Ben asked, although he did have his suspicions.

"I'm blind and Evie is deaf." Mal said defeated.

Evie turned back to Ben and Lonnie, "You can't tell anyone. If people on the Isle find out they'll see it as a weakness and we won't be safe when we go back."

"When you go back?" Lonnie asked, "Do you have plans to return? I thought Ben wanted you guys to stay here." She turned to Ben, who Evie noticed was very confused.

"As long as you four choose to be good, you'll never go back to the Isle. My father made it as a prison. You and the other children did nothing wrong and should not be there." Ben informed them. The best part was both girls could tell he was being 100% sincere.

Of course Jay and Carlos choose that moment to return. Jay doesn't look around and immediately heads to the freezer. "We got the potion stuff and Jay needs ice for his neck." Carlos said before realizing Ben and Lonnie.

"Why does Jay need ice? Did he hurt himself?" Ben asked genuinely worried.

Evie saw the panic in Carlos' face and reassured him, "It's fine they know about Mal and myself. We don't have to go back to the Isle"

"Like never?" Jay asked holding an ice pack to his neck. After seeing both Mal and Evie nod he said, "I have Fibromyalgia. I'm just having a bad pain day."

Carlos looked at his friends and said, "I have Autism. It's why I am the way I am. Does this mean Plan B is cancelled?"

The other three villain kids looked at Carlos then eachother. "I don't know about you guys, but I like it here more than the Isle." Mal announced, "I vote we cancel the plan and just stay here." After getting agreements from the other three they all felt a weight lift off their shoulders.

"You can tell us what Plan B means later if you want." Lonnie said, "I think we should go to Fairy Godmother about having people learn sign language for Evie and braille or get a text to speech program for Mal."

"I completely agree." Ben smiled, "And Mal, I've been meaning to ask you this for a week now, but would you like to go on a date with me?"

Mal nodded, speechless. Now their new life in Auradon could begin and they could help other children from the Isle when they were brought over.

THE END


	2. PLEASE READ

Wow I never expected this story to be so popular! A lot of people have asked for this to become a multichapter story and I honestly wasn't expecting that. When I posted this I was kinda terrified because I wanted to have good representation of a deaf character and a blind character in this story. I did a lot of research, but I was still unsure if I got it right. So, thank you for your support!

Unfortunately I'm a senior in college right now so I'm a pretty busy, but I will write a sequel story to this sometime in the future. I'm shooting for December after this semester ends, but it may not happen. In the mean time someone PM'ed me to ask if they could use my idea in their own story so look forward to that happening at some point. Anyone else who want to try is free to, just PM me about it so that I can look out for it to read it.

Thank you all so much,

FaceofWood


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